Point Park High School Journalism Workshop

“The Imitation Game”

“The Imitation Game” was an movie that was based on time during the World War. Alan Turing was the main character and he had a rough childhood. He was picked on because he was different from everyone else. He proposed to Joan Clarke, one of the cryptographers, after she planned to leave on her parents’ wishes.

He was hiding his true identity for his whole life until he told his work partner John Cairncross. He ordered Cairncross to keep it a secret.
Turing is difficult to work with and works alone mostly. He created a machine he named Christopher to decipher Engima, the Nazi’s secret code for sending messages, or difficult to understand. It could not decipher the Engima settings because the Germans changed the settings each day.

Commander Denniston ordered the machine be destroyed, Turing fired, but the other workers said they would leave if Turing left. Turing and his machine were then given another chance.

At his reception, he overheard an interesting conversation with a clerk about messages she always received and, he said his machine decodes words that it already knows exists. He re calibrated the machine and then it quickly decodes a message and the cryptographers celebrate. Turing then said that they cannot act on every decoded message or the Germans would realize Engima had been broken.

Turing discovers that Cairncross is the spy and confronts him about it. Cairncross then threatens to reveal Turing’s secret if he tells his secret.
Stewart Menzies threatens Clarke, Turing reveals who the real agent is, but Stewart already knows. Menzies tells the cryptographers to destroy their work and that they can never see one another again.